Australia Kits

[JDDCo]

It seams that all the kits in here are from Australia, is this
a class they teach in high school or what lol. Is there any
from the U.S.A.

[col]

Thats pretty funny. I wish I had access to the wide variety of speaker drivers that you seem to have there, well without the dollar exchange and the shipping cost.

col.

[ostripper]

Yes, it is funny.. We have all the parts here, but all the DIY'ers
are "down under".

[VHF man]

DIY has been popular for many years here in Australia and part of this was / is due to the stratospheric prices of imported commercial high end amps (as in NZ). The situation has probably changed in the past decade due to the number of cheap quality products from SE Asia and a stronger Au$ but the affinity with DIY has strong roots and has survived beyond the logical use by date. We are now spending as much or more on the parts to build a DIY amp than a reasonably similar quality commercial product from Asia.
>We can also thank the support from and the relationships between electronics hobby stores such as DSE and Jaycar, and electronics magazines born in the 70's and 80's. They may have merged and changed names (now Silicon Chip) but survived along with many long standing staff and contributors, and have nurtured the DIY niche along the way.

[enzedone]

Couldn't agree more.

It's soooooo expensive just to buy some heat sink here. And there is such a small supply of parts, that I now find myself buying from Asia more than here.
That's O.K when the dollars strong like at the beginning of this year. But now it's 50 c to $1USD. It's costing me an arm and a leg to build anything. I have to check with the miss's every time I want buy something.

[JDDCo]

But Diy is so gratifying! I've been building speakers for over 20 yrs and my friends can't believe how a $500 home made speaker
can sound 10 times better than a "high end" can sound.

[djk]

"Is there any
from the U.S.A."

The Nelson Pass A40 board is still availble (and for only $6!) from AudioXpress.

http://www.audioxpress.com/bksprods/PCBPAS.htm

The original use was for a 40W class A amplifier, but I have used this board to build class AB amplifiers up to 600W.

http://www.passdiy.com/pdf/a40.pdf

The Erno Boberley EB-60 is still available for $11.75, originally a 60W MOSFET amplifier. Again, it may be adapted to any power level, and with BJT devices as well. Fairly advanced for a first project.

Lastly, the original Zen board is still available for $12.95, a Nelson Pass design. It is for a low power FET amplifier (only).

http://www.passdiy.com/pdf/zenamp.pdf

[JDDCo]

I didn't know audioexpress sold kits, I did find
www.ampslab.com but I didn't find any info on
them in this forum, good or bad. I also considered
Aleph-X or maybe Aleph A2 but I wanted to stick
with class AB.